Guns used for lawful self defense

[Tero]

Mormonism is a cult. You can't leave.

[Gallstones]

I think you should be smarter than this.

I will take that as confirmation that you voted for the man who is so stupid and naive, that he follows a religion started by a con artist upon his release from prison for fraud, in which he demanded his followers give him 10% of their earnings and in which he claimed up to 50 women as 'wives'.

All religious people are irrational, of course, but Mormons must be even more stooooopid than the rest.

You should be smarter than this too.
Try not to read so superficially and try to not let your preconceived assumptions tell you what is what.

I say this despite the fact that I need not defend my choice of candidate or my vote to anyone.

[Gallstones]

Mormonism is a cult. You can't leave.

I've been told once a Catholic always a Catholic.

We are all something.

[Blind groper]

I am not American, and I was interested to note that the non American world overwhelmingly supports Obama over Romney. My main reason for doing so is that Romney is a hawk, and the last thing we need to an aggressive American president sending the world into another war. There was a book about the Iraq war titled "The Three Trillion Dollar War." Certainly the USA cannot afford another such war, and it amazes me that so many Americans can support a man who was talking of 'getting tough with Syria and Iran.' Since sanctions have already been applied and failed, 'getting tough' can only mean war. If so, Romney is an idiot.

[Seth]

you're using this study to advance an argument not supported by the study itself.

I was using the published study in the New England Journal or Medicine to back up the statements of fact I had made about suicide, when they were challenged. A study like that is not an argument in itself. The way we interpret the facts, and use them to form an argument is up to us.

You, Seth, have repeatedly shown a serious lack of caring for people who are less fortunate. You have said "fuck'em" in relation those sad and depressed or lonely people who go on to attempt suicide. I am not sure that your arguments have any meaning at all, since very clearly, you do not give a shit about anyone else.

Wrong. I give a shit about ALL THE REST OF US who stand to be grossly victimized by having our gun rights taken away simply because a few deranged suicidal people choose an efficient method of suicide according to your so-called logic. That's the other 300 million or so people who do not deserve to be disarmed by a stupid argument like yours. Is it lamentable that people commit suicide? Yes, of course it is, and I'm all for getting such people all the help they need, but again, when you propose to take away MY guns because someone else who wants to commit suicide MIGHT use HIS gun to do so, that's were I draw the line. His life is not worth the destruction of the rights of 300 million people. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

You're a Nanny-Statist who believes that the government must regulate everything so that nobody ever has anything bad happen to them. The problem is that it's insane idiocy to advocate the kind of oppressive government that is required to create such a society. I'd rather be free, and safe, and able to defend myself than be a sheeple who is obedient to a government that can turn on the people on a whim and destroy their freedoms utterly. The United States was founded on the principle that government is a necessary EVIL that must be strictly controlled and constrained if the people are to have any liberty at all.

The obvious extension of your idiotic argument is that the government should ban motorcycles, sky diving, mountain climbing, whitewater kayaking, auto racing, golf, five gallon buckets, bathtubs and every other thing that might or has killed someone out of a pathological overconcern for the lives and safety of the mentally ill who might hurt themselves if such activities and devices are allowed in society.

Sorry, but I refuse to live in such a society and will do whatever it takes to prevent that sort of thinking from entering the laws of the United States.

Life is not safe, or fair. It's dangerous and it kills every one of us in the end. But I'd rather spend my life assessing and choosing those risks I'm prepared to take than allow someone like you to make those decisions for me. If that means that some people die a premature death, so be it. I respect THEIR right to assess and choose the risks they wish to take and would not be so arrogant as to assume that I know better than they do how they should live their lives, which is something arrogant asses like you simply cannot understand because you've drunk the Nanny State Kool-Aid and are lost to reason and freedom.

Better to live for a day in freedom and die a free man, even by my own hand, than live a lifetime in slavery, which is what you're advocating.

Sometimes you die. Get over it.

[Seth]

I am not American, and I was interested to note that the non American world overwhelmingly supports Obama over Romney. My main reason for doing so is that Romney is a hawk, and the last thing we need to an aggressive American president sending the world into another war. There was a book about the Iraq war titled "The Three Trillion Dollar War." Certainly the USA cannot afford another such war, and it amazes me that so many Americans can support a man who was talking of 'getting tough with Syria and Iran.' Since sanctions have already been applied and failed, 'getting tough' can only mean war. If so, Romney is an idiot.

It wasn't "overwhelming" it was by only about two million votes, which is less than one percent of the population. Obama has no mandate for anything.

[Blind groper]

It wasn't "overwhelming" it was by only about two million votes, which is less than one percent of the population. Obama has no mandate for anything.

Re-read my post. The 'overwhelming' bit was not about votes.

[Blind groper]

You're a Nanny-Statist who believes that the government must regulate everything so that nobody ever has anything bad happen to them. The problem is that it's insane idiocy to advocate the kind of oppressive government that is required to create such a society. I'd rather be free, and safe, and able to defend myself than be a sheeple who is obedient to a government that can turn on the people on a whim and destroy their freedoms utterly.

Totally wrong.

I am a pragmatist who believes in doing what is needed for the maximum good for the maximum number.

There is no such thing as a "free" society along the lines you describe. In the USA, as elsewhere, the state restricts our behaviour for the greater good. It prevents drink driving. It enforces speed limits. It creates laws by the thousands, any of which, if you break it, will put you in prison. Your so-called free society is a fiction.

I have proposed a restriction on hand guns. Not on firearms of all kinds. Just hand guns. I proposed that for pragmatic reasons relating to the good of the majority. 8,000 people each year are murdered with hand guns, and 12,000 commit suicide with hand guns. Most of those lives could be saved by the simple expedient of removing hand guns. That is a pragmatic action, designed for the good of the majority. There is nothing worse in that proposal than stopping drunks driving on public roads. If you are a gun enthusiast who absolutely must get his jollies by firing bullets at targets or animals, then you can use a rifle or shotgun.

[Seth]

You're a Nanny-Statist who believes that the government must regulate everything so that nobody ever has anything bad happen to them. The problem is that it's insane idiocy to advocate the kind of oppressive government that is required to create such a society. I'd rather be free, and safe, and able to defend myself than be a sheeple who is obedient to a government that can turn on the people on a whim and destroy their freedoms utterly.

Totally wrong.

I am a pragmatist who believes in doing what is needed for the maximum good for the maximum number.

No you're not, you're a hoplophobe. If you were a "pragmatist" who believed in "doing what is needed for the maximum good for the maximum number" you would oppose gun control and advocate for an armed citizenry. You instead choose to take the path of endangering everyone who might be or is factually protected by the private ownership and carrying of handguns by disarming them out of an over-blown interest in a tiny number of suicides that are facilitated by handguns. Your math simply doesn't work.

There is no such thing as a "free" society along the lines you describe. In the USA, as elsewhere, the state restricts our behaviour for the greater good. It prevents drink driving. It enforces speed limits. It creates laws by the thousands, any of which, if you break it, will put you in prison. Your so-called free society is a fiction.

The thing is that so long as you don't break a law, you're free to do what you want. Why should my right to keep and bear arms be infringed when I have never broken a gun-related law? Your argument is getting even weaker as you shoot yourself in the foot again.

I have proposed a restriction on hand guns. Not on firearms of all kinds. Just hand guns. I proposed that for pragmatic reasons relating to the good of the majority. 8,000 people each year are murdered with hand guns, and 12,000 commit suicide with hand guns.

That's 20,000 people. Now compare that to the 80,000 (NIJ minimum) to two million (Kleck, Lott et. al.) people a year who are protected by firearms, including lawfully carried handguns.

That's a minimum of FOUR TIMES the number of suicides and homicides that the federal government admits engage in lawful defensive gun uses. And those are just the ones the feds are forced to admit to from their own records. The actual number is much, much higher in part because some 60 percent of the time the firearm is never discharged and no police report is ever made.

Most of those lives could be saved by the simple expedient of removing hand guns.

At what cost? At the cost of 80,000 to two million people victimized and who knows how many of them murdered, that's what cost. And that's the factor that you are simply mendaciously ignoring.

That is a pragmatic action, designed for the good of the majority.

No, it's not.

There is nothing worse in that proposal than stopping drunks driving on public roads.

Completely, utterly wrong. We don't prevent drunks from driving on the highways by BANNING ALL CARS, you dunce. We do it by PUNISHING THOSE WHO DRIVE DRUNK. Sheesh. Are you really this stupid or are you just playing an idiot on the Internet for your amusement?

If you are a gun enthusiast who absolutely must get his jollies by firing bullets at targets or animals, then you can use a rifle or shotgun.

It's not about "jollies" and when I shoot my handgun at practice, it's in deadly serious earnest and intended to give me the edge in an armed confrontation. And I'll keep right on doing it, whether you like it or not.

[Seth]

It wasn't "overwhelming" it was by only about two million votes, which is less than one percent of the population. Obama has no mandate for anything.

Re-read my post. The 'overwhelming' bit was not about votes.

Who gives a fuck what non-Americans think? Not me.

[Jason]

Seth I don't believe you do have all these firearms ready to hand, a bunker, a motorcycle, or a girlfriend. I demand photographic evidence.

[Seth]

Seth I don't believe you do have all these firearms ready to hand, a bunker, a motorcycle, or a girlfriend. I demand photographic evidence.

I could give it to you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Just got back from Fort Benning, GA last night. I was at the International Sniper Competition, not as a competitor but as a vendor. Got to shoot on the Burroughs range both during the night shoot and the next day with my Sako TRG-42. Hit everything I shot at at least once, including a 12-inch steel plate at 877 yards. Didn't have a lot of ammo though, only 20 rounds, at four bucks a round. I did get to shoot the new Barrett .338 semi-auto MRAD and a really nice Ashbury Precision Ordinance .338 Sabre. Gonged the 877 yard target with that one twice. Nice rifle.

[Blind groper]

That's 20,000 people. Now compare that to the 80,000 (NIJ minimum) to two million (Kleck, Lott et. al.) people a year who are protected by firearms, including lawfully carried handguns.

Total and absolute bullshit.

You get those figures from a survey that fits the description of self fulfilling prophecy, which you believe purely because it is convenient to your prejudices to believe it.

An article I read a while back, by a psychiatrist, suggested that one in ten people suffers from some form of delusion, mild or not so mild.

So a survey is run in the USA about guns used in self defense. In the US, 30% of the people own guns, but the total number of guns is estimated to be nearly as many as the total population. This means the gun owners on average have 3 or more guns. That means that they are gun enthusiasts, or I as I prefer to call them, gun nutters.

So the survey is run in which the key question is ; have you ever used a gun successfully in self defense? Obviously only 30% of the population can answer yes, since the others do not own guns. If a little over 3,000 people are asked, then only 1,000 can answer yes. However, we can fairly safely assume that all 1,000 want to answer yes, because that is their enthusiasm. Guns and the use of guns. Now we assume that 100 of them are delusional, if they meet the same standard as the rest of the population.

The USA has a little over 300 million people. To get a result showing 2 million have used a gun in self defense successfully, only 1 in 150 need answer yes. That is just 20 of the 100 gun nutters who are delusional. Only 1 in 5 of the gun nutters who are delusional are sufficiently delusional enough to answer yes.

So that answer is fully consistent with the hypothesis that the survey result came entirely from delusional gun nutters living out their 'shoot the bad guy' fantasy. In fact, it is surprising that the number is as low as 2 million. Based on the incidence of delusion, and the number of gun nutters, I would have expected that fantasy to have produced a much higher number.

In other words, that survey result is total crap.

I would also like to add that, in other western civilised nations, where no-one has guns for "self defense", the very low homicide statistics show that the 'self defense" is not needed. Which backs up the fact that your two million number is delusion.

[Seth]

I would also like to add that, in other western civilised nations, where no-one has guns for "self defense", the very low homicide statistics show that the 'self defense" is not needed...

...until it is. Then all your statistical bullshit goes out the window and it's the individual's right to life against the attempts of a criminal to take it, and in that calculus the rights of the innocent always outweigh statistical arguments and the predatory needs of criminals.

[Blind groper]

Seth

I cannot agree with your rejection of statistics. Remember Spock in Star Trek : "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Where the removal of hand guns, as has happened already in other western civilised nations, results in homicides dropping substantially, and thousands of lives being saved, then that cannot be discounted by some gobbledegook about a few individuals needing hand guns.